And after a four-hour visit, his talk full of sharp detail, shrewd observation and rollicking anecdotes, his grandiose visions presented with such crackling fervor that maybe they're not so nutty after all, Marty Silverman, who still goes to his Manhattan office daily, would also be the last person you would guess will turn 92 next month.
Though a resourceful news reporter and feature writer on five continents, one with an eye for telling detail, shrewd judgments (Alan Clark was "a philanderer obsessed with his own wife") and a vivid turn of phrase, he found his most comfortable niche as a humorous columnist.
At the end of his powerful book, crowded with telling details and shrewd observations about nearly every aspect of the world the railroad bosses made, White floats a counterfactual balloon: what if the steel lines that spanned the continent had been "built as demand required" instead of as part of a competitive dash that caused as much waste and hardship as progress?
But it was "George Orwell: A Life," published in 1980 and widely praised for its wealth of detail and its shrewd analysis of Orwell's politics, that stood as his finest achievement.
After the breakup, she complains that he still owes her a lot of money, the kind of real, shrewd detail that rarely gets a look-in with relationship comedies.
So much happens in this relatively short book, there are so many shrewd details, that it could have simply been a straightforward memoir of Ms. Ward's life.
"Time for Heroes," an attack on rock 'n' roll pretension, was full of shrewd details: a slight tempo shift in the middle of each verse, and lyrics peppered with sharp asides.
A Capitol fixture since 1980 and a conscientious legislative technician, Saland negotiated with Cuomo the details of a shrewd compromise that assured religious organizations that they would not be compelled to participate in gay marriages, giving a bit of shelter to lawmakers worried about religious blowback.
Performers of her work will have to look hard for an unforgettable pungent phrase (has anyone ever said: only Yasmina Reza could have put it like that?), but not at all hard for singular theatrical shocks, shrewd circumstantial detail and soliloquies that give them a moment in the sun with a big central subject.
He's got a shrewd eye for detail.
This is the velvety end of that music: plump and earthbound, deeply swinging, rich with the detail of Mr. Matthews's arrangements, shrewd with his minimalist, supersmart piano playing.
